We've finally started to have some good weather in Portland, and I've taken full advantage of it. Yesterday, I went on a 15 mile hike in the Columbia River Gorge, one of the most impressive areas around Portland. It has the highest concentration of waterfalls in North America. I saw at least a dozen on my hike up Eagle Creek, ranging from several feet high to a couple hundred feet high. I definitely miss living in the Rocky Mountains, but I keep telling myself that the Pacific Northwest has a different kind of beauty. I think this is it. My pictures don't even begin to do these waterfalls justice.
This hike was not for the faint of heart. Many sections of the trail were on narrow cliff ledges like this one, often hundreds of feet above the creek below.
This is Tunnel Falls, a 160 foot high waterfall with a tunnel through the cliff face directly behind it. You can see some people in the picture just to the left of the falls, about to enter the tunnel.
About to go in the tunnel!
A scramble off of the main trail brought me to this waterfall. Standing at the base of it was like standing behind a jet engine in the rain. The wind created by the waterfall was intense! Hence the poor quality pictures. I was only willing to use my phone to take them, and the lens was constantly getting sprayed with water.
The treat of this waterfall was that I got to walk right behind it, which was the driest spot within 50 yards of it.
I got soaked by the mist while I was checking this one out, but it was well worth it.
There are many more great pictures in my flickr album. I will definitely be back to this incredible area.
It's been a while since I updated my blog, and a lot has happened. I've had several visitors over the past couple months, started with my Mom and Aunt Nancy. Unfortunately for them, their trip was more of a work trip than a vacation. They helped me do a lot of work to make my duplex more homely. We spent a lot of time shopping (lots of time in Ikea) and putting together furniture. They helped transform my apartment from a place that I slept and ate to a place that I enjoy spending time. Here are some pictures my mom took (which explains the blurriness).
We did have some time for fun, though. On Saturday, we visited the Pittock Mansion, a huge estate that was built by one of the first families to strike it rich in Portland. The mansion is a museum now and a very impressive building for its time period. An intercom system, a central vacuum system, and an elevator were part of the home, which was built by 1914. Unfortunately, I didn't know how impressive it was going to be, so I didn't bring a camera.
Just two weeks after they left, Matt Fuller visited for a weekend. It was great to see him and catch up with one of my best friends from college. Matt wanted to see the Pacific Ocean, so we went to the coast for a hike. It was pretty muddy and we got rained on a little, but we accomplished our goals of seeing the ocean and some very big, old trees.
Right after Matt visited, my dad was in town for a week. My dad helped me with some stuff around the apartment, too, but more importantly, he brought me some personal protection: a .45 Hi-Point and a 1911-.22 Chiappa. Both are very inexpensive guns, but are a lot of fun to shoot.
One of the highlights of my Dad's trip was going to the Evergreen Aviation Museum. The Evergreen Aviation Museum is a huge building full of vintage and modern aircraft, the most famous of which is Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose. We paid the extra 25 bucks to get a tour of the cockpit and take some pictures. Well worth it.
This is an incredibly impressive airplane.
Unfortunately, we didn't have near enough time to look around the museum. I look forward to an excuse to go next time I have a visitor interested in aviation. The rest of the pictures I took at the museum are on flickr and a well worth taking a look at.
It's been a while since I updated my blog. I've mostly been working and moving into my apartment. I don't have much furniture yet, so unpacking has been pretty slow. I'm waiting until I have more furniture to take pictures of my apartment.
I have done some exploring and so far like the Pacific Northwest. I went snowboarding at Mt. Hood Meadows one weekend. It was fun, but definitely different from Colorado. The cascade concrete (heavy, wet powder) really takes a toll on your legs. It is pretty cool to be able to drive out of the rain in Portland into the snow on Mt. Hood.
One of my coworker's parents has a 30 acre farm outside of the city. I spent a Saturday morning there getting firewood (my duplex has a wood burning fireplace) and helping them with some work. I folded my back seat down, threw down a tarp, and was able to get an impressive amount of wood into the back of my Jeep.
The stack is about five feet tall and nine feet wide. I still have to get a maul so I can split it and start using it for fires.
The past few days, we've had great weather - sunny and dry. I took advantage of the great weather on Saturday to go for a hike along the coast at Tillamook Head. I hiked about nine miles in one of the coolest forests I've ever been in. The hike has some historic significance, as it's a route Louis and Clarke took in search of a beached whale the natives had told them about. There is also a WWII radar bunker in the forest.
Unfortunately, the entrances are gated, so you can't get in (at least not easily...)
Though many of the old growth trees had been cut down before it became a state park, many of them are still standing, or have only recently fallen over. Many of the trees were by far the biggest I have ever seen in my life. It's hard to tell how big they are from my pictures, but some were at leas 6-7 feet in diameter at the trunk.
I ate lunch in solitude sitting on top of a 1000 foot cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Out on the rock on the left of the picture is the Tillamook lighthouse, nicknamed Terrible Tilly.
To end the day, I sat on the beach and watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. This marks the furthest west I've been in the lower 48 and the first time I've seen the sun set over the ocean.
The high land on the left is Tillamook Head, where I spent the day hiking.
I used my GoPro to make this time lapse. It's not that exciting, but was my first time using the camera.
There are a lot of great pictures from this hike on flickr.
I've been at my new job for a week now and so far things are going well. I'm working for Siemens, which is a huge engineering company (over 400,000 employees worldwide). I'm working in the light rail electrification group which has about 15 employees, so it feels like working for a small company. Most of the other engineers (including my boss) are electrical. I'm one of three mechanical engineers in the group.
I've already learned a lot about light rail systems, especially the overhead contact lines (which are way more complex than I though). So far, I enjoy the work I'm doing and like the the people I work with. I've been doing 3D modeling in SolidWorks and stress analysis on overhead contact line components (we're getting a license for ANSYS which I'll probably be using early next year). So, I'm actually using some stuff I learned in school, which is cool.
Right now, I'm staying in an EconoLodge. I spent most of my free time last week researching apartments and went to see a few after work. I found a duplex on Thursday and put a deposit down for it. It's got a garage, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a wood burning fireplace. I'm pretty excited to move into it, but won't be able to until next weekend. They are replacing the carpet in the living and dining room areas with engineered wood (similar to what I put down in the cabin, for those of you that have seen it).
As for living in Portland... it's different. From what I've seen so far, it's a very pretty city. There are massive trees and parks everywhere. It doesn't really feel like living in a city. The weather has actually been pretty good since I got here. We've had several days with sunshine (uncommon for this time of year) and not much rain. It is overcast a lot, but it's a different kind of overcast. It's more of an all-encompassing fog, which is actually kind of cool.
It's very green here. We're at the tail end of fall now with leaves still falling off some trees. The grass is all still very green, and vines or moss grow on almost everything. Roofs, sidewalks, and even some roads have moss growing on them. I definitely miss living in the mountains, but am looking forward to the new challenges and adventures of living on the west coast.
I picked up my mom from the airport Tuesday evening. We finished cleaning the cabin and loaded the 4-wheeler into the back of the truck, then attached the trailer and loaded my Jeep onto it.
We were on I-70 heading west by 9.30 am, hurrying to beat a winter storm that was headed to the central Rockies that night. It was slow going (we averaged 50 mph through the central Rockies), but we made it to Salt Lake City around 8 pm. We spent the night there and woke up to to flickering lights and high winds.
The winds were gusting up to 90 mph in SLC and had caused power outages throughout the city and had blown over several semis. The highway just south of where we stayed was closed because a semi was on its side, blocking the highway. The winds were predicted to get worse before they got better, so we ate a quick breakfast then headed north. I was pretty nervous driving the big U-haul truck, towing my jeep because the wind was mostly perpendicular to the highway. I could feel the gusts tipping the truck and blowing it left and right. After a strenuous hour, we made it out of the gusty winds. Luckily, it wasn't snowing during all this. The rest of the drive went pretty smoothly. After two-and-a-half days and 24 hours of driving, we made it to Portland (and averaged about 10 mpg).
Portland had unusually good weather and for the whole weekend. The sun was out and we got great views of Mt. Hood on our drive in.
